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Latest Chicago Ratings 2-22-22 Release

Looks like WCHI is having a huge effect on WKQX. Never thought it would be by this much. Can we expect Cumulus to make major changes in the near future?
 
joezak77 said:
Looks like WCHI is having a huge effect on WKQX. Never thought it would be by this much. Can we expect Cumulus to make major changes in the near future?
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Wouldn’t surprise me. WKQX has really been struggling in recent years (just one city in the nationwide woes for Alt). WXRT seems to be playing more modern indie rock lately (based on the random times I scan their playlist) and with 95.5 playing a lot of the gold material you can hear on KQX, they just might be being squeezed to death by the increased competition.
 
WLS-FM is doing pretty poorly compared to other major market classic hits stations. Not a good book for Cumulus here, no real change at 890 either.

I remember reading a lot on here about how awful 95.5 was and how it was destined to fail…considering the age of the station, and a somewhat tricky and hard to get audience, they’re doing pretty well, beating WBBM-FM, WKQX, etc. Looks like iHeart has finally found something for the 95.5 frequency which has struggled to find footing since dropping smooth jazz (not that it was performing, but was a stable format on the frequency)
 
Why am I not surprised a station programmed by Troy Hanson is performing poorly in the ratings?

I think the Metallica promotion a few months back coupled with some very minor music tweaks have helped Rock 95.5. It remains a mediocre station, but it's all rock fans have available on the FM dial in most of Chicagoland.

I agree with chrocket87 regarding the squeeze effect. 93XRT took a big bite out of WKQX's numbers first, and much more recently, Rock 95.5 seems to be doing something similar.

The rock audience simply cannot tolerate heaps of Modern AC / pop radio crossover junk.

Q87.7 / Underground Q was a much better radio station than the present day WKQX.

I will also say I think it's premature to say Rock 95.5 is out of the woods from a ratings underperformance vantage point. The past couple surveys have definitely been good to them. Remember, Big 95.5 also strung together several pretty solid ratings periods before the air escaped from the balloon (and that station never recovered).
 
It is interesting to note that outside of Chicago, WLS-FM and WKQX are the only top markets where Cumulus has either a classic hits or alternative station.

I know their classic hits stations are close to WLS-FM as far as what they play (LS-FM is a bit more rock leaning), is WKQX a standard bearer playlist wise for their alternative stations?
 
MarkW said:
Why am I not surprised a station programmed by Troy Hanson is performing poorly in the ratings?

I think the Metallica promotion a few months back coupled with some very minor music tweaks have helped Rock 95.5. It remains a mediocre station, but it's all rock fans have available on the FM dial in most of Chicagoland.

I agree with chrocket87 regarding the squeeze effect. 93XRT took a big bite out of WKQX's numbers first, and much more recently, Rock 95.5 seems to be doing something similar.

The rock audience simply cannot tolerate heaps of Modern AC / pop radio crossover junk.

Q87.7 / Underground Q was a much better radio station than the present day WKQX.

I will also say I think it's premature to say Rock 95.5 is out of the woods from a ratings underperformance vantage point. The past couple surveys have definitely been good to them. Remember, Big 95.5 also strung together several pretty solid ratings periods before the air escaped from the balloon (and that station never recovered).
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I feel like iHeart will stick it out with WCHI as rock, even if it doesn’t do that great and requires further tweaking. At this point, there isn’t much else that’s on the table for them to try on that frequency. A couple of Spanish language iterations didn’t work, country failed to really get anywhere, where else is there to go? I feel like it’s a similar situation to 106.7 in Detroit.
 
Did Nielsen modify its cume estimation methodology recently?

In the handful of markets I checked, cume on a station by station basis looks miserable. Stations that used to cume around 1,500,000 now cume only around 1,000,000, stations that used to cume around 1,000,000 now only cume around 600,000 to 700,000, and so on.
 
CassChopper96 said:
What caused WUSN to go up so much? It's like the only successful country station Audacy owns.
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WUSN has no Country competition to speak of. In Detroit, for instance, there are two full power full market Class Bs, Audacy's WYCD and Cumulus' WDRQ, and the audience is fragmented. There is talk of WDRQ going to a simulcast with WJR, and of course, because the anemic WLS (AM) signal in the Northern part of the Chicago Market is hurting their ratings, there is talk of WLS-FM going to a simulcast again.

A lot of Women in general are switching over to Country and CCM because CHR and even AC have a LOT of obnoxious sounding unlistenable material.
 
MarkW said:
Did Nielsen modify its cume estimation methodology recently?

In the handful of markets I checked, cume on a station by station basis looks miserable. Stations that used to cume around 1,500,000 now cume only around 1,000,000, stations that used to cume around 1,000,000 now only cume around 600,000 to 700,000, and so on.
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I'm assuming it's based on a combination of listening levels never having quite recovered to pre pandemic levels, as well as the recent shortage of PPM meters.
 
MarkW said:
Did Nielsen modify its cume estimation methodology recently?

In the handful of markets I checked, cume on a station by station basis looks miserable. Stations that used to cume around 1,500,000 now cume only around 1,000,000, stations that used to cume around 1,000,000 now only cume around 600,000 to 700,000, and so on.
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Cume means that the meter carrier listened at least once and qualified for a single quarter hour of listening in a week.

Of course, some stations have lost cume, others have increased. Overall, most stations are cuming less with the OTA signal than in 2020, but much, much more than in January of 2021.

I looked at LA comparing 2019 numbers for January with January of 2021.

KOST 2.9 million down to 2.0 million
KRTH 2.8 million down to 2.0 million
KBIG 2.5 million down to 1.9 million
KIIS 2.7 million down to 1.9 million
KTWV 2.1 million down to 1.8 million.

The 2019 January to 2020 January is basically flat. The 2020 (pre-pandemic) to 2021 is dreadfully lower. The 2021 to 2022 comparison is significantly higher. For example, KBIG was 2.4 million in January 2020, down to 1.4 million in 2021 and now up to 1.9 million in 2022.

So the conclusion is that we are seeing the "average station" up considerably from January 2021 cume, but still lower than pre-pandemic levels.

I looked at five other Top 10 markets, and the same general trending is seen. Of course, a few stations either fell more or gained more than the average, but that represents the always-changing competitive environment.
 
jt99 said:
I'm assuming it's based on a combination of listening levels never having quite recovered to pre pandemic levels, as well as the recent shortage of PPM meters.
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The shortage of meters does not affect listening levels. All that means is that each meter is weighted higher within the total sample.

January 2022 is considerably higher than January 2021, but still less than 2020.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
WUSN has no Country competition to speak of. In Detroit, for instance, there are two full power full market Class Bs, Audacy's WYCD and Cumulus' WDRQ, and the audience is fragmented. There is talk of WDRQ going to a simulcast with WJR, and of course, because the anemic WLS (AM) signal in the Northern part of the Chicago Market is hurting their ratings, there is talk of WLS-FM going to a simulcast again.

A lot of Women in general are switching over to Country and CCM because CHR and even AC have a LOT of obnoxious sounding unlistenable material.
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I don't think WLS-FM would simulcast the AM now. They are still making money with Classic Rock.
 
I can’t imagine Cumulus ever putting WLS on FM. Why replace a music format with much more potential with a dinosaur brand and format? WLS-FM’s classic hits format isn’t doing great right now, but it’s doing better than WLS AM’s talk format would and probably has better demos that an FM signal wouldn’t help.

WJR on FM may eventually be feasible, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. It does better than some of Cumulus’s other larger market talkers (WMAL excluded), but again, it’s an aging dinosaur and really has no reason to be on FM at this point for competitive reasons.
 
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